Green Food Truck Marketing with Reusable Bags

Green Food Truck Marketing with Reusable Bags

The smart food truck owners can tap into the following facts with a promotional tool that not only is good for the environment but is also good for their mobile food business too. So, how can a green marketing plan be implemented in your food truck? Offer reusable bags or promote discounts for customers who provide their own reusable bags to carry their orders.

The Facts:

The typical food truck customer has a strong environmental consciousness.

Increasing municipal regulations are being created which ban the use of plastic bags.

Green Food Truck Marketing with Reusable Bags

Offer a Reward for Responsible Packaging

Reward commitment. Let your customers know that you take your commitment to reducing waste seriously. Offer a reward to those who use their re-usable bags habitually with a punch-card. Advertise a free item after any one customer carries home their goods in your reusable bag on 10 occasions.

Reward on the spot. Knock 5 cents, 1 percent or any other sustainable amount off the total cost of an order for any customer using your reusable bag.

Instant beverage rewards. Offer one free small soda for every order using a reusable bag.

Advertise the Benefits of Reusable Packaging

Less mess. Communicate to your customers how reusable bags will help to keep their cars, homes and office spaces neater and more organized.

Products retain freshness. Many reusable bags can be styled with insulation. This will keep your product fresh and at the proper serving temperature for longer periods of time.

Display fun, but alarming facts. Research on sites such as Reusethisbag.com offer fast facts on the negative impacts of plastic and paper bags on the environment and economy.

Benefits of Reusable Bag Promotion

This type of promotion is a great way for food service businesses to connect with their community through loyalty and environmental outreach.

Build communities. There are many people in your community who are concerned and committed to creating better environmental standards. This demographic spans across generations and income levels and the message is easy to communicate.

Sound off, quietly. By offering a take-out bag that is not thrown away, this promotion offers a non-intrusive solution to keeping your brand in the forefront of your customers’ minds.

How to Run a Reusable Bag Promotion

There are a few considerations to put in place before getting your reusable bag promotion under way:

Know your audience. Consider your target demographic and decide whether this type of promotion would appeal to them or not.

Research your options. Before buying a pile of reusable bags, find a vendor that offers a quality product within your price point. There are a number of websites that offer this service for a low price, such as Green Monster.

Advertise your promotion. It’s not enough to buy the bags and keep them on display; you’ll have to get the word out. Utilize social media to reach out to customers and work to build word of mouth advertising.

Take a step back. Once your program is under way, be sure to assess whether it was a successful promotion or not. When running such a program it is essential to have a keen understanding of its value, or lack thereof.

Find your foothold in going green while promoting your food truck business within your community by using or promoting reusable bags.

Richard is an architect by degree (Lawrence Technological University, Southfield, Michigan) who began his career in real estate development and architectural planning. In September of 2010 he created Mobile Cuisine Magazine to fill an information void he found when he began researching how to start a mobile hotdog cart in Chicago. Richard found that there was no central repository of mobile street food information anywhere on the internet, and with that, the idea for MCM was born.